The planned dive would be the latest milestone for China in a high-stakes technological race once dominated by the U.S., which in 1960 sent two men to the bottom of the Mariana Trench—at 11,033 meters the deepest point in the world's oceans—in the now-retired Trieste bathyscaphe.

The Voyage of the TriesteOn Jan. 23,1960, U.S. Navy Lt. Don Walsh and Swiss explorer Jacques Piccard made the only voyage to the bottom of the Challenger Deep in the bathyscaphe Trieste, shattering by four kilometers the depth record they had set just 15 days before.

That said, I'm planting the Cone of Smugness firmly on my head to point out two recent spelling errors -- bathyscape should be bathyscaphe, and back when you were talking about randonneurs, you misspelled pretension with a t in the middle instead of an s.

If you have no work to occupy you -- and apart from a task lasting exactly one minute I hadn't done a stroke that afternoon -- the interior of a bathyscaphe has singularly little to offer in the way of entertainment and relaxation.